Powerman said:
I can respect that view. I agree with you there. I guess if the shoe fits I'm talking to the people that say that it is the inspired word of God. God wouldn't command people to write such an absurd and stupid fallible book.
The Bible includes history. The Hebrews were at that time not doing much better than others in many ways. God wanted that to change, he chose them to be the carriers of His law. He then gave them the law. Please be specific in what laws God commanded that seem absurd to you, or evil.
His ordering the genocide of those people is because they were a thouroughly wicked people, worshipping other gods, commiting infanticide, human sacrafices, and worshipping evil acts. God did not want that infecting the Hebrews. Hence, he ordered the genocide of them.
Since God created them, He alone has the right to command they all be killed.
However, killing off all those people wasnt really a big deal as far as Im concerned. I dont even view death to anybody as a big deal. A death is a big deal to the loved ones survivors however. For example, when someone says, "its such a shame, he was so young and had so much to live for" THE DEAD PERSON D0ESNT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. Its his survivors who suffer. Unless you believe in an afterlife, then he would know, but if he is in heaven, he is actually better off. Even if he is in hell, its of little consequence, eternity is a long time, and the time we spend on this earth will wind up looking like less than a drop of water in the Pacific ocean. Currently, that drop is all we have to look at, so it seems big, we are ants compared to it, yet in time we will realize how petty it is, the length of time that is.
Another way to view that is how kids react to pain. When pulling splinters from my kids, they "freak " out. The immediate moment of pain seems like an eternity to them, yet when its all over, they realize it wasnt such a big deal at all.
Another thing I came to realize about "time" lengths. We only seem to understand a length of time if we have experienced that length of time. In other words, little kids cant conceive how long 25 years is. As we get older, our time experiences become longer, and hence we are able to conceive just how long a length of time is. Young adults have a hard time thinking old age will ever really come. But once you hit middle age, it all becomes very , very real.